Ged Carroll

Category: business | 商業 | 상업 | ビジネス

My interest in business or commercial activity first started when a work friend of my Mum visited our family. She brought a book on commerce which is what business studies would have been called decades earlier. I read the book and that piqued my interest.

At the end of your third year in secondary school you are allowed to pick optional classes that you will take exams in. this is supposed to be something that you’re free to chose.

I was interested in business studies (partly because my friend Joe was doing it). But the school decided that they wanted me to do physics and chemistry instead and they did the same for my advanced level exams because I had done well in the normal level ones. School had a lot to answer for, but fortunately I managed to get back on track with college.

Eventually I finally managed to do pass a foundational course at night school whilst working in industry. I used that to then help me go and study for a degree in marketing.

I work in advertising now. And had previously worked in petrochemicals, plastics and optical fibre manfacture. All of which revolve around business. That’s why you find a business section here on my blog.

Business tends to cover a wide range of sectors that catch my eye over time. Business usually covers sectors that I don’t write about that much, but that have an outside impact on wider economics. So real estate would have been on my radar during the 2008 recession.

  • Facebook cant be removed + more

    Facebook Cant be removed from Certain Android Phones – Search Engine Journal – pre-installs creating bloatware on phones like the PC industry did when profits got tight. Given Facebook’s position as a monopoly Facebook cant be removed from phones has to be an area for action

    ‘I love my Mac!’ – Zoë Smith – “My phone rang, and the video I was watching on the computer paused!” – when we are running computers hundreds of thousands of times the power of the entire NASA Apollo space programme computers, why wouldn’t this happen? This seems like a relatively easy CX related win, yet it seems like magic. This says a lot about the poor user experience in computing. More design related content here.

    Chinese budget smartphone brand Realme has Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe in its sights after sweeping India | South China Morning Post – BBK expands its brand portfolio beyond Oppo, OnePlus, Vivo and Realme. It is the hidden leader while Huawei gets the kudos, BBK owns mid market handset sales. BBK were also responsible for the amazing Oppo Blu-Ray players and high end headphones.

    This online tool can transform your black-and-white photos into color images | Abacus – interesting that it was launched to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Chinese economic reform. It uses machine learning taught with 1,000s of photos. Just don’t rely on it for colour fidelity.

    Selling extremism: Nationalist streetwear and the rise of the far right – interesting given the multi-cultural history of street wear. However clothing has also been a code for subcultures and communities. In the past the far right borrowed the workwear look from the skinhead culture. MA-1 jackets, Fred Perry shirts, Ben Sherman shirts, Levi’s jeans and Dr Marten boots. As the codified items get coopted by other groups they get replaced. Skinhead haircuts are replaced something more high and tight. It was only a matter of time that extremists borrowed from streetwear and football casual style.

  • Douyin + more things

    Are Douyin and TikTok the Same? | What’s on Weibo – China’s Netcasting Services Association (中国网络视听节目服务协会), an association directly managed by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, issued new regulations that online short video platforms in China should adhere to. One of the new guidelines requires all online video service providers to carefully examine content before it is published. Tech China reports that the new stipulations require that all online video content, from titles to comments and even the use of emoticons, has to be in accordance with regulations, which prohibit any content that is ‘vulgar,’ is offending to the Chinese political system, puts revolutionary leaders in a negative light, or undermines social stability in any way – interesting dive into the differences between TikTok and Douyin which seem to run off separate systems. We also see some crossovers, for instance similar ad formats on both Douyin and TikTok. Another area of connectivity is the similar level of censorship on TikTok that is rolled out on Douyin. This is creepy, but makes both Douyin and TikTok brand safe, which is particularly attractive to mainstream advertisers. The big question for me is whether TikTok provides direct access to its data to the Chinese government like Douyin would be obliged to do. More related content here.

    Snap Business | Apoposphere – how the apps you use impact your daily life and emotions – usual caveat emptor considerations apply. Sample size is 1,005. Research is sponsored by Snap

    Facebook culture described as ‘cult-like’, review process blamed | CNBC – can’t work out if there is a lot of employee adulting required or if the culture is reminiscent of peak Microsoft circa 1995

    Major WeChat trends brands can’t ignore in 2019 | Digital | Campaign Asia – WeChat and global traveller connection particularly important

    Major WeChat trends brands can’t ignore in 2019 | Digital | Campaign Asia – WeChat and global traveller connection particularly important

    The perfect plan for the couch potato | Trendwatching – Bilibili and Ele.me partner to provide hybrid content streaming and free food delivery

    Brands should give up control to reach Gen Z | Creativepool – this says more about how marketing hasn’t changed over the past 15 years than gen-Z. This tells me that brands and agencies haven’t been listening. It also tells me that I can recycle decade old platitudes and essays with a Ctrl+F gen-Y and Ctrl+V gen-Z

    Samsung’s Supreme Copyright Spat | The Daily | Gartner L2 – Chinese consumers weren’t fooled by the “Supreme” partnership, eviscerating Samsung on social media following the launch. Its Greater China digital marketing manager responded to the uproar by posting on his Weibo account that the decision to work with Supreme Italia was made because it had obtained the authorization to use the brand in China. Samsung later backtracked as he deleted the post and Samsung’s official Weibo account announced it was “re-evaluating” the partnership – gosh I can feel the heat from the burn on this from half way around the world…

    Apple’s China Problem : 12 Reasons – Counterpoint Research – covers more of the points that I would have hit

    Move over, millennials and Gen Z – here comes Generation Alpha | Society | The Guardian – is defining generations useful? “You have to be careful about it,” says Karen Rowlingson, professor of social policy at the University of Birmingham. “But we shouldn’t ignore generational divides. Younger people are, on average, facing many more challenges. And, certainly, inequalities within that generation [millennials] are greater.”

    Apple is putting iTunes on Samsung TVs – The Verge – makes you wonder about the future of the Apple TV?

    Should we think of Big Tech as Big Brother? | Financial Times – That also used to be the view of Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google’s founders, who presented a paper in 1998 highlighting the perils of advertising. “We expect that advertising-funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers. This type of bias is very difficult to detect but could still have a significant effect on the market,” they wrote.

    When Ad Breaks Get Weird: Branded Content in Chinese TV Dramas Is Ruining It For the Viewers | What’s on Weibo 

    Internet rightists’ strategy of provocation gaining traction in Japan | The Japan Times – Japan starts to see western style internet wars with personal attacks (paywall)

    Chinese coffee startup Luckin: We won’t be the next ofo | HEJ Insight – interesting read that reminded me a lot of the reporting on the original dot com boom in the UK and US

    Amazon says 100m Alexa devices sold – usage figures remain a mystery | The Drum – and in the second part of the headline is the rub

    Masayoshi Son wants Arm’s blueprints to power all tech – Armed with a crystal ball | The Economist – I have a lot of respect for Son-san but this reads like bubble-level BS. There are so many variables such as China 2025 that make this inadvisable. Secondly its not like ARM is the only micro-computer core design that’s low power and available. Thirdly, we’ve hit peak smartphone, other devices won’t offer the same business opportunity

    Opinion | Is This the End of the Age of Apple? – The New York Times – This is a big issue not only for Apple but also for all of tech. There is not a major trend that you can grab onto right now that will carry everyone forward. The last cool set of companies — Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest and, yes, Tinder — were created many years ago, and I cannot think of another group that is even close to as promising

    Understanding the Emerging Era of International Competition: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives | RAND – great read

    Startup founders say age bias is rampant in tech by age 36 – There’s a scourge in tech that apparently runs even deeper than sexism or racism: ageism. In a wide-ranging survey of US startup founders polled by venture-capital firm First Round Capital, 37% said age is the strongest investor bias against founders, while 28% cited gender and 26% cited race.

    The liberating thrill of a slender book | Quartz – Let’s keep this short. We’re busy. We want to read but don’t have time for deep dives, and that applies to books as well as articles

    China says its navy is taking the lead in game-changing electromagnetic railguns – Chinese warships will soon be equipped with electromagnetic railguns that fire projectiles with “incredibly destructive velocity,” and that the underlying technology was based on “fully independent intellectual property,” rather than designs copied from other nations.

    Burberry Zhao Wei and Zhou Dongyu CNY Campaign | HYPEBAE which ended up to be a bit of a mess: Why Burberry’s Chinese New Year campaign doesn’t quite hit the spot | The Drum 

  • Zodiac signs perils

    We’re less than a month away from the year of the pig on February 5, 2018. Marketers need to be cautious using Chinese zodiac signs.

    Chinese new year is a time of gifting. It may be red envelopes with cash, Christmas style gifts (like a new iPhone), or zodiac animal themed gifts. Shops often gift if you buy above a certain amount. I bought a sweatshirt in Decathalon and was given a Mickey Mouse towel free to celebrate the year of the rat.

    If you have a premium bank account you might be given a zodiac ornament of some type. Coffee shops like Pacific Coffee and Starbucks get in on the act with zodiac animal themed merchandise and gift cards. Zodiac signs are big business.

    Of all the zodiac signs, the pig presents some unique challenges for marketers.

    On one hand it can be seen as a kawaii or cute looking creature, like the Hong Kong cartoon character McDull. A pig is also seen as gluttonous and fat. Chinese and other east Asian cultures are not shy about saying if someone is fat. This means that consumers can more be sensitive about their body image.

    Year of the pig

    Starbucks Hong Kong seems to have upset a small but significant number people who have shared their dislike on Facebook.

    Starbucks Hong Kong year of the pig (2019) merchandise

    They didn’t want a pig faced coffee tumbler because of what it implied about them whilst they used it.

    Starbucks Hong Kong year of the pig (2019) merchandise

    Hong Kong clothing brand Giordano have played with the concept of the pig in their promotions. Again the association between this design on clothing and the wearer could be an interesting one. The idea of a fat year, meaning a prosperous year maybe lost in translation for some Hong Kongers.

    Giordano Chinese year of the pig 2019

    The key takeout for brands should be to practice critical thinking. They need to go beyond the cute design and repetition of last years gift with a different animal design. Think about the context and interaction of the end user with the product. What does the symbolism say about them? More related content here.

  • Designing the Internet

    David D Clark was involved in the designing the internet as it moved into the commercial sphere. He rose to prominence in the 1980s through to the mid-1990s. In the talk at Google’s Mountain View campus he goes over much of the process. The things he says about network economics and security is particularly interesting.

    Outtakes

    In the 1970s it was about getting the protocols right, they needed to debug both the code and the specification that went alongside.

    1980s made hierarchies to make things scale as everything got bigger.

    1990s brought in the commercial internet, the specific goal of specifications was to shape industry structure. Protocol boundaries define industry structures.

    Quality of service development was compromised because it didn’t work economically for network providers. Specifically by concern about internet telephony. Standards adaptation was affected the internet service providers efforts to get value out of applications that run over the top (like Google).

    His discussions on designing the internet with politicians are particularly intriguing. There are still unanswered questions about societal and political accountability. There is a space for anonymous actions and an accountable internet would fall back to sovereign states including authoritarian regimes.

    Availability as well as integrity and cryptography (disclosure control) are important for security. The internet is insecure by design. Conscious decisions were taken to put risky actions into the internet. This gave us Flash, Acrobat and the Chrome browser.

    Embedding risky actions to provide attractive features for users, versus ensuring that these are only between people who you know. Trustworthiness is key.

    Protocol features affect industry power, adding more features may give power to the wrong people. The prime example of this is the work that the Chinese government have been doing with Huawei to try and define real ID, censorship and cyber sovereignty into next generation standards. More related content here.

  • ICE-ing

    ICE-ing – a method of protest using vehicles with internal combustible engines

    Sometimes writing posts are a matter of serendipity. I was out walking in Stepney Green and came across a series of electric vehicle charging points. I hadn’t paid any attention to them before.

    Right about the time that I noticed them; I saw that the parking bays in front of the charging points were all taken up by petrol or diesel engined vehicles. This being London were parking spaces tend to be a premium, I took a picture of the dissonant scene and quickly moved on.

    Untitled

    I came in and then read a piece of how truck owners in the US were trolling Tesla supercharging points. Car culture is still huge and overwhelmingly celebrating petrol engined vehicles. But in the US there is a definite sub-text to the protests; one of class war. Metropolitan elite Democrats versus middle America truck-owning Republicans hence ice-ing.

    I revisited the photo that I took earlier in Stepney Green. All the vehicles in the photo were mid-range Mercedes cars with the exception of the Nissan pick-up truck. What would the odds have been of a super-mini in the row of parked vehicles if this was just about parking spaces? Was it British ice-ing

    It didn’t seem organised; but more of an organic system. Some first ‘person like me’ committed the transgressive act of parking in a charging bay. This then gave ‘permission’ for others to do it as well and the spaces filled up.

    There are a number of reasons for a consumer to not want to purchase an electric car when looking for a vehicle:

    • Cost
    • Energy density / range
    • Speed of recharging
    • Charging point network
    • Vehicle choice

    A bigger and harder to crack issue for vehicle manufacturers is one of values. Electric cars don’t have a culture behind them. They may have good road performance but they are the wholemeal bread of the automotive world. Something you should so, rather than something you are passionate about driving. Internal combustion engines won’t go quietly into the night.

    BMW going into formula E and launching the i8 using the design language from the M1 was a nod towards making electric sexy. But on its own its like spitting in a hurricane. One Japanese vehicle manufacturer knew how to make electric (and petrol) vehicles exciting through

    • Customisation
    • Tinkering
    • Community
    • Noise
    • Spectacle

    Unfortunately for the automotive industry that vehicle manufacturer is Tamiya. Tamiya is a Shizuoka based manufacturer of remote control cars for hobbyists.

    Maybe the answer isn’t about marketing but about engineering?

    You can change the fuel without changing the excitement, noise or spectacle.

    Hydrogen powered combustion engines offer similar energy density and performance to petrol cars, but with water as the waste product rather than carbon monoxide. Battery technology currently relies on a lithium and most of the world’s supply comes out of a high desert in Chile – we’ve replaced one finite resource (oil) with another (lithium and rare earth metals).

    Toyota is already experimenting with hydrogen in Japan. BMW have done pilot programmes in the past and hydrogen as been trialled in heavy goods vehicles.

    More consumer behaviour related posts here.